Low-carbon technologies ‘no quick-fix,’ say researchers

February 16, 2012

Wind power: no reduction in global warming until latter part of century (credit: stock image)

A drastic switch to low carbon-emitting technologies, such as wind and hydroelectric power, may not yield a reduction in global warming until the latter part of this century, research published today by the Institute of Physics suggests.

Furthermore, it states that technologies that offer only modest reductions in greenhouse gases, such as the use of natural gas and perhaps carbon capture and storage, cannot substantially reduce climate risk in the next 100 years.

The study, published today (Thursday, February 16) in IOP Publishing’s journal Environmental Research Letters, claims that the rapid deployment of low-greenhouse-gas-emitting technologies (LGEs) will initially increase emissions because they will require a large amount of energy to construct and install.

These cumulative emissions will remain in the atmosphere for extended periods due to the long lifetime of CO2, meaning that global mean surface temperatures will increase to a level greater than if we continued to use conventional coal-fired plants.

Delaying the rollout of the technologies is not an option, however; the risks of environmental harm will be much greater in the second half of the century and beyond if we continue to rely on coal-based technologies, the study says.

Many decades may pass before a transition from coal-based electricity to alternative generation technologies yields substantial temperature benefits. Panels above show the temperature increases predicted to occur during a 40 yr transition of 1 TWe of generating capacity. Warming resulting from continued coal use with no alternative technology sets an upper bound (solid black lines), and the temperature increase predicted to occur even if coal were replaced by idealized conservation with zero CO2 emissions (dashed lines) represents a lower bound. The colored bands represent the range of warming outcomes spanned by high and low life-cycle estimates for the energy technologies illustrated: (A) natural gas, (B) coal with carbon capture and storage, (C) hydroelectric, (D) solar thermal, (E) nuclear, (F) solar photovoltaic and (G) wind. (credit: Myhrvold N P and Caldeira K/Environmental Research Letters)

The researchers, from Intellectual Ventures and the Carnegie Institution, Stanford, arrived at their conclusions through a set of simple mathematical models that calculated the effect of switching energy technologies on the concentration of greenhouse gases, radiative forcing ( the balance between absorbed and radiated energy from the sun) and global mean temperature.

Coal-based power plants were used as the basis for comparison because they generate the most greenhouse gases per unit of electricity produced — replacing plants of this kind will have the greatest benefits on the climate.

These power plants were compared to wind power, nuclear power, hydroelectric power, carbon capture and storage, and natural gas. Solar photovoltaics (harnessing the sun for electricity) and solar thermal (harnessing the sun for heat) were also compared.

“Achieving substantial reductions in temperatures relative to the coal-based system will take the better part of a century, and will depend on rapid and massive deployment of some mix of conservation, wind, solar, and nuclear, and possibly carbon capture and storage,” the researchers write.

Comments (21)

Actually, I count myself as a Leftist and I agree that we should apply the Precautionary Principle to safeguard our civilization, BUT at the same time I disagree that CO2-obsessive policies will have the intended effect. This anti-CO2 obsession is just what you would expect from people deviating from rationality via Hindsight Bias and it’s preventing/delaying the adoption of more effective policies that should increase our civilization’s immunity to ALL types of climatic changes.

Wave energy isn’t wide-spread because it requires a place where there is a large distance between high and low tides. That said, there are most likely many places where it could be used and isn’t, putting it along with a number of case-specific energy technologies.

@Renzo: Fission power isn’t renewable, because it requires rare materials like uranium or plutonium. Fusion power (which is what you may be thinking of), on the other hand, is, since it uses the same process stars do to create energy from abundant atoms like hydrogen, but it may be quite some time before scientists figure out how to build the reactors.

Phatz4ever makes the good point and the point that I wish world governments would consider. It is, what happens when something goes from cottage industry to mass production.
Some think that Henry Ford invented the automobile. Some think that he invented the movable assembly line. What Ford actually did was come up with “ultra” mass production numbers that made automobiles affordable by the masses.
Also, I rarely hear people talk about ocean wave energy converters. An entity called Pelamis installed three of their machine in Portugal a couple of years ago, but they were shut down for a variety of reasons. The Swedes (a company called Vattenfall) have commissioned a 27 unit wave farm.
Fifty years ago, when I was a very young boy, the TV showed a French wave farm on the English Channel. The news blurb ended by saying that the technology would go nowhere because before too long, fission power would be too cheap to meter. I wonder where we would be today if that or some other wave technology had been pursued and mass produced.

And yes wind energy is a strong, solid investment. It produces 3-10 million dollars over the the course of the turbines lifetime. After 20that years you get your money back and more. Thats why big companies have 1kto turbines built, because theres gauranteed long term pay off.

It doesn’t matter what energy source we use as long as we keep trying to create a human monoculture. Years ago I had an idea for for efficient seawater desalting, which I still think might work. But in trying to prove it I began to wonder if there was any point. We solve one problem so we can multiply some more, until another shortage develops. “Improved” avian flu, where are you?

@Karl You have no clue what you are talking about. I’m an engineer around the midwest and have taken classes with the pioneers of the technology. There’s enough wind energy potential to power the US to power the US, Canada, and Mexico even if we all decided to switch to electric cars. It’s expensive and requires subsidies because the technology is new. When they first started making wind energy turbines, near everything was made by hand and custom built. New technology is making things more efficient energy wise as well as price wise.

You’ve repaired gear boxes and know they break down a lot. That’s why they are switching to direct drive because it breaks down so much. That’s why we NDE to keep things from breaking and costing more.

“Same with photovotaics – not a single ‘net watt’ ” This is pure blatant lying and or propaganda. Do the power systems calculations on the grid. They work just fine. We calculate for reactance issues if that’s what you are talking about. If you don’t believe it, contact MISO and figure out if there are no power generation from the turbines. You will be proven wrong.

It does not take a PHD to realize that current wind and solar are less than worthless – destroying wealth that takes energy to produce is pretty stupid.

I’ve repaired some wind generators and did the math – just propaganda work. Same with photovotaics – not a single ‘net watt’ of power has been produced by solar cells to date. Solar cell’s un-subsidized cost has to be about $0.10 to $0.25 to be sane,

It might help if you had one however. You’d better tell the Scottish government, they have many wind turbines and are building more, and will be self-sufficient quite soon in renewable energy if they decide to break from the UK. Then there’s the wind farms going up on the North Norfolk coast, never seem to stop turning. And Good Energy will be surprised since they encourage their customers [they only supply 100% renewables] to generate and sell to them with a guaranteed price. So you’ve prepared some wind turbines, wow. My eldest son has designed, built, installed and monitored many. He can do the math, he has a doctorate.

Ryan, perhaps you haven’t kept up with the news. Data show that there has been no warming in the past 14 years. A story came out last week showing that glacier melt was also a non-issue.

I have an idea, Ryan. If you are so ardent about anthropogenic climate change, sell your car, sell your bicycle too (it was made using lots of carbon), don’t buy any more clothing or shoes (products of dangerous industrialization), turn off your climate control systems and finally, unplug that computer. Your mouth (or in this case your fingers) is outrunning your brain.

There are 7 billion people on this planet. How will they be fed if we don’t use fossil fuels? Do you even know where your food comes from? I seriously doubt it. We have serious environmental issues to get control of, such as water quality, over fishing, pollution on an epic scale in China and India. But AGW religionists like yourself want to waste time and resources on a problem we couldn’t solve with current or foreseeable tech even if it were true.

“A story came out last week showing that glacier melt was also a non-issue.”

And this is what happens when you get your information from the mainstream media with scientifically illiterate reporters. Go read the research they were referencing. It said no such thing. How embarrassing for you to reference the same false conclusions when you clearly haven’t read the actual research.

Actually the last decade was the second hottest on record. Where DO you get your factoids from? You people never use your real names, why? Too embarrassed for people to know who you are? How will 7 billion be fed when the lowlying land / agricultural land is under water? I’m surprised you actually took in that we have serious environmental problems, there’s hope yet, most deniers I’ve ever seen voicing their spurious copied and pasted ‘opinions’ think it’s all lovely and we hippies/greens/scientists/politicians made it all up.

NASA satellite data show the Earth’s atmosphere is allowing far more heat to be released into space than current computer models have predicted, according to a new study in the peer-reviewed science journal Remote Sensing.

Data from NASA’s Terra satellite shows that when the climate warms, Earth’s atmosphere is apparently more efficient at releasing energy to space than models used to forecast climate change have been programmed to “believe.”

You’re grabbing at straws. Anything at all to rubbish climate change, and now, apparently, the Earth is shedding heat faster despite the greenhouse effect of increased and increasing carbon, and methane release which is starting to accelerate as permafrost thaws. Pathetic really. Cake and eat it time.

AGW is one of the greatest ‘scientific’ hoaxes ever perpetrated. There is no climate risk. “The researchers, from Intellectual Ventures and the Carnegie Institution, Stanford, arrived at their conclusions through a set of simple mathematical models that calculated the effect of switching energy technologies on the concentration of greenhouse gases, radiative forcing ( the balance between absorbed and radiated energy from the sun) and global mean temperature.”
What do you want to bet these ‘simple’ models are so simple as to be useless and that they were tweaked until they produced the desired result? What do you want to bet that the ‘true believers’ of AGW will not care, will not consider, will not think, but will simply have a knee jerk reaction of ‘Yup, always knew it.’ And then there will be a flood of non sequiturs and irrelevant arguments about why we should create a Leviathan state to control every aspect of our lives and this will make them very happy, indeed.
Imagine AGW meant we needed to decentralize power immediately and everywhere. How many ‘true believers,’ how many left wing academics and politicians would clear their collective throat and find reasons for skepticism?
The transparency of the ‘true believers’ is obvious to everyone except themselves, which I suppose, is logical.

Yes, I had you sussed as a denier from the previous silly comment. You must be raking through the internet for anything to assist your dumb denial. Let’s hear from you then exactly why all these tens of thousands of scientists have been conspiring shall we? Got a sensible and sane reason or more raving fantasy? Of course you’re a yank, you all see it as left-wing/democrats/libruls issue, and you people are the only ones atnding up against them But the fact remains that anyone who imagines a conspiracy on this scale isn’t just a simpleton, they are seriously disturbed. Paranoid. And you get yourretaliation in first I see … ‘AGW true believers’ indeed, when it’s you denialistas who are a cult. I’ve seen your copy and paste websites, where you all hang about like fourteen year old without girlfriends sniggering to each other about these daft scientists and their silly predictions. Wait a minute, you haven’t mentioned Al Gore, he who started this conspiracy and masterminds it from his mansion… pathetic

Oh please, don’t be so short sighted. One hundred years? The Cambrian “Explosion” took many millions of years. Do we review every decade of it? Another ice age is around the corner. So u won’t see it but u have an incredibly short life span. Global warming? Oh boo hoo, welcome to earth.

Goodness you sound so knowledgeable, pity your ignorance shows through though since global warming is a reality, the temperature has increased almost a degree in just a decade, and anyone with a grasp of the science will know this is massive. Sea level rise at 3.5 mm a year and, of course, increasing as more feedback loops kick in. If you’re under forty you WILL experience the effects in your lifetime, you will see increasing flooding and agricultural land lost to food production. You may think food comes from the supermarket, but actually it’s grown in the environment, and with more and more of us every year, we can’t sustain feeding ourselves even. But never mind, dream on, it will catch you up one day, and you’ll feel responsible, because you are.

I can almost hear the sound of AGW denier’s brains whirring with activity as they think of ways to twist this research into an argument that we should do nothing at all. Once they finally cease the futility of being contrarians about basic, easily verifiable science, the next logical fallback position is to claim we shouldn’t try to turn the bus around until it’s gone over the cliff and entered free fall.